


Scoville Scale

by Eggling



Category: Doctor Who, Doctor Who (1963)
Genre: M/M, hints of two/jamie but not that much
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-24
Updated: 2017-02-24
Packaged: 2018-09-26 15:39:38
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,897
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9909083
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Eggling/pseuds/Eggling
Summary: Over the course of his travels in the TARDIS, Jamie develops an unexpected taste for peppers.





	

**Author's Note:**

> written in response to [this thread](http://the--highlanders.tumblr.com/post/136247506326/thescarletpaperback-penny-anna) on tumblr.

Jalapeño

Even to the Doctor, the TARDIS was unpredictable at best, and mystifying at worst. Whilst he disliked admitting this, even to himself, sometimes the whims of his ship were simply inexplicable. When he emerged into the kitchen at an hour he deemed appropriate enough for his human companions to be awake, therefore, the appearance of a large pile of green peppers on the table was greeted with more resigned curiosity than surprise.

Even less surprising was the sight of Ben and Polly hunched over the food machine. Polly seemed to be trying to make logical sense of the mass of buttons and switches, whilst Ben was more interested in pressing and flicking each in turn. As he tried yet another, the machine emitted a somewhat musical whine, and yet another pepper materialised, greeted by an eye roll from Polly and a loud groan from Ben. As the Doctor felt this was a slightly unfair welcome for the pepper in its clearly unwanted entry into existence, he stepped through the doorway, coughing by means of announcing his arrival.

“Doctor!” Polly exclaimed, looking up in relief. “Maybe you can fix this.”

“That all depends on what’s wrong,” the Doctor replied, moving closer to examine the pile. “I take it peppers weren’t what you had in mind for breakfast?”

“All I wanted was some toast,” Ben muttered darkly. “Instead we end up with half a pepper farm in ‘ere, and no grub!”

“Well what exactly did you -” The Doctor’s enquiry was interrupted by Jamie entering the room, yawning widely. He stopped short at the sight of the peppers on the table, rubbed at his eyes, and looked closer as if to check that he was not dreaming. The Doctor saw Ben’s eyes light up in a way that normally meant some new trial for Jamie was imminent, and he fought the urge to smile.

“What’s this?” Jamie asked.

“Breakfast.” Ben gestured to the peppers somewhat grandly.

“Aye, I can see that,” Jamie replied, a little too quickly. He hesitated for a moment, then added, “But what are they?”

“This, my friend, is a pepper,” Ben said, holding up the food machine’s most recent production. “A delicacy from Mexico. Try one.”

Dubiously, Jamie approached the table, as if he thought the peppers might spring into life and attack him at any moment. He picked one up, hanging it in front of him by the stalk. The Doctor was fit to bursting with the effort of restraining his laughter, and he wondered if the effort was beyond him, if he were about to spoil the entire joke. Just in time, however, Jamie shrugged to himself and took a large bit of the pepper. He chewed it thoughtfully for a moment, seemingly surprised that the pepper tasted pleasant, despite his experience with Ben’s pranks. Then his eyes shot open, an expression of comical shock on his face, his cheeks puffed out from both the size of the bite he had taken and the burning. He stood still, every limb rigid with discomfort, then raced over to the sink, spitting out the pepper and holding his head under the tap to let the water run into his mouth. When he emerged, water dripping from his hair, it was to see the Doctor and Ben clutching at each other, doubled over in laughter, and even Polly smiling despite herself. His eyes narrowed in fury , which only made his friends laugh harder.

“You -” He seemed to struggle to find an insult severe enough. “You _sassenachs_.”

“Your _face_ ,” the Doctor choked out.

“I can’t believe that worked,” Ben choked out. “I didn’t think you were that gullible!”

“What hellish planet do those come from?” Jamie spat out at last.

“Earth,” the Doctor replied, and Jamie shot him a disbelieving glance.

Seeming to take pity on Jamie, Polly had finally succeeded in getting the food machine to work, and handed him a glass of milk. “This is supposed to help,” she told him. Jamie glowered at her for a moment, then took the glass sullenly.

“Ye havenae seen the end of this,” he vowed. To his frustration, Ben merely laughed louder.

Tabasco

The TARDIS seemed to dislike peppers after that, even seeming to reject purposeful attempts to produce them. After some time, however, the incident seemed to be forgotten, and Ben managed to produce enough small, red peppers to fill a bowl, which he placed in front of Jamie at their next meal. Jamie simply stared at them, then looked at Ben with something resembling triumph. Ben failed to notice this, however, winking at Polly and taking his own place at the table.

“Again?” Polly asked, sighing. “It’s not even been a week since you brought out those exploding ice-creams.”

“That was a mistake,” Ben insisted, but Polly shook her head disbelievingly. He leant in to whisper to her, “Anyway, this will be good. If I’m right, these are tabasco peppers.”

“And...”

“And, they’re fifty times hotter than the last ones.” They both looked up at the sound of the Doctor attempting and failing to stifle laughter, then turned to Jamie.

To their astonishment, he was calmly eating his way through the bowl of peppers without a change in expression. He looked up, met Ben’s eyes in a silent challenge, then returned to the peppers. Ben and Polly exchanged confused glances, unable to explain Jamie’s resistance to this latest joke. Throughout the meal, Jamie continued to eat the peppers as if their spice was non-existent, but Ben and Polly did not dare ask him about it. Stunned into silence, they left the kitchen without a word at the end of the meal.

Had they remained behind and peered around the door, they would have seen the Doctor continuing to shake with silent laughter for a moment before breaking the silence, practically cackling with impish glee. They would have seen Jamie let out a long, shaky breath, his eyes watering from the effort, and slump face-down onto the table, raising one hand, which the Doctor met in a high-five, still giggling. After a moment, the Doctor crossed to the food machine and produced a glass of milk for Jamie, which he took wordlessly, sitting up, downing it in one gulp, and handing it back for more.

Scotch Bonnet

Soon after arriving on board the TARDIS, Victoria had become aware of Jamie’s somewhat special relationship with the food machine. As a seemingly endless source of sustenance, it was quite possibly his favourite part of the endless ship, and she had known it to churn out cake, cheese, potato scones, and even haggis at all hours. Everything, it seemed, except for porridge – the one attempt that she knew of had ended with Jamie shouting at the food machine in distress, and the Doctor eating the portion anyway.

The usual enough sight of Jamie fiddling with the food machine whilst the Doctor sat in a chair beside him, engrossed in a book, was only rendered almost unbelievable, therefore, by the orderly line of peppers of all different shapes, sizes, and colours on the table. Briefly, she wondered if the machine had malfunctioned again, as practically all of the TARDIS was wont to do, but all her theories were discarded as Jamie gave a cry of triumph and pulled out a new pepper.

“What’s this one, Doctor?” he asked, waving it in front of the Doctor excitedly.

“Hm?” The Doctor looked up from his book distractedly, then chuckled. “That’s – ah, that’s a Scotch bonnet pepper, if I’m not mistaken, Jamie.” Immediately, Jamie broke into a wide smile, and the Doctor turned to Victoria, startling her with this sudden acknowledgement of her presence. “Only Jamie could make the food machine turn out a Scotch bonnet pepper,” he stage-whispered to her.

“I heard that,” Jamie reprimanded him affectionately, batting at his shoulder with one hand without looking up from his examination of the pepper.

“Shush, you.” The Doctor peered at the pepper more closely. “Yes, around seven times hotter than the tabasco pepper, I think.” Jamie considered the pepper for a moment, turned it over in his hands once, and bit into it as if it were an apple. Victoria’s eyes grew wider with every passing moment, fearing that Jamie’s appetite had at last got the better of him, but he barely reacted. He swallowed, looked down at the pepper thoughtfully, and then took another bite. The Doctor rolled his eyes and reached up to take the pepper and deposit it on the table.

“One of these days, you’re going to meet your match,” he muttered. Jamie cast an exasperated look at Victoria, and a challenging one at the Doctor.”

“ _Cò as motha a dh'itheas de jalapeños_ ,” he replied. Unable to make heads or tails of this, Victoria looked between Jamie and the Doctor in confusion, but they were glaring at each other with more frustration than real venom, paying her no mind.

“No doubt,” the Doctor said wearily after some time, and Jamie gathered his stash of peppers into his arms and marched out of the room. Before Victoria could ask him what Jamie had meant, he merely increased the strangeness of the whole situation. “He just challenged me to a pepper-eating competition.

Bhut Jolokia (Ghost Chili)

“You couldn’t possibly eat that,” Zoe argued, irritated by Jamie’s smug expression. “It’s one of the hottest peppers in the world.”

“I could,” Jamie protested. They were seated at opposite ends of the table, Jamie with a large bowl of peppers in front of him.

“Let’s see, then,” Zoe said, rising from her chair and moving over to the food machine. Jamie leant back casually and watched as she punched in the correct instructions, producing a bright red pepper.

“What are you two -” The Doctor rushed over, trying to grab the pepper from Zoe. “Don’t _encourage_ him, Zoe, you know what happened with the pepper-flavoured shortbread.”

“It wasnae my fault that you and Zoe picked up the wrong box,” Jamie said, grinning. “Though it was funny.”

“It wasn’t!” the Doctor exclaimed, his handkerchief a red flag of distress in his nervously fluttering hands. “Zoe, please...”

Her eyes already alight with glee, Zoe passed Jamie the pepper, ignoring the Doctor’s whimpered protests. Jamie met her gaze defiantly, not taking his eyes off her as he bit into the pepper. To Zoe’s astonishment, he quickly swallowed the first bite, then the rest of the pepper.

“That’s good,” he said, holding up the stem. “Any more?”

Zoe could only stare at him, so he brushed past her to poke at the food machine himself, returning with a bowl full of the peppers. The Doctor watched in horror as he began to eat them, and Zoe covered her eyes.

“That’s disgusting,” she mumbled. Through her fingers, she saw Jamie stick his tongue out at her, then continue eating. “Can’t you do something?” She turned to the Doctor in despair. He shook his head, then his eyes widened. Zoe was familiar with that expression – it signalled the crushing of alien threats, the toppling of oppressive regimes. And, apparently, an end to Jamie’s pepper addiction.

“Jamie,” the Doctor said at last, his voice infinitely dangerous. “I do hope you’re not counting on us sleeping in the same bed tonight.”

Jamie could not have dropped the peppers faster, Zoe noted with satisfaction, if they had have been burning his fingers with their heat.


End file.
